


vow with a smile

by starshipology



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Bi-Curiosity, Coming of Age, Drama, F/M, Falling In Love, Family Issues, Female Friendship, Friendship/Love, LGBTQ Themes, M/M, Minor Original Character(s), Original Character(s), POV Alternating, Protective Karasuno Volleyball Club, Queerplatonic Relationships, Slice of Life, Volleyball Dorks & Nerds
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-14
Updated: 2020-06-14
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:41:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24716233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starshipology/pseuds/starshipology
Summary: The story of our youthーmine, hers, and hisーwas never immortalized but, also, never forgotten.
Relationships: Hinata Shouyou/Original Male Character(s), Shimizu Kiyoko/Original Male Character(s), Sugawara Koushi/Original Female Character(s), Tsukishima Kei/Original Female Character(s)
Kudos: 2





	1. 通えない記憶

**[** ** incommunicable memories ** **]**

The earliest time she could ever remember herself ever introducing herself is at the young and impressionable age of two, she remembers that there's a candy involved in the equation but she also remembers her hair in pigtails while being balanced on the knee of her father. There's a VHS tape of this moment tucked somewhere in the house and it's filled with cooing voices of her parents and uncle as she forces herself to babble her name. It's filled with stuttering, pauses, and more coaxing from her audience but it was the first semblance of introduction she's ever done. Her name is a word— _only a word_ —and not a name, not just yet. 

"What's your name? Mahiro-chan, look here," Her mother ushers from behind the video camera with an excited smile, "Mahiro-chan!" She exclaims as she tried to catch the attention of the young child. Her father bouncing her up and down from his knee, making her giggle as she turned her attention to the camera. She stops and stares at the camera lens, verdant eyes twinkling as she blinked, "Maro!" She laughs, clapping to herself as the adults around her cheered, cooed, and coddled her. 

She's four years old when she introduces herself for the 42nd time— _she isn't quite sure, 42 was the highest number she could count without the help of an adult_ —and it's to her new playmate. Her playmate is younger than her by one year but that doesn't mean anything to her because this girl's hair is black like the color of her closet at night and her eyes are the color of carrots. Her favorite vegetable is carrots but she can't say the same for the girl who was picking out the baby carrots from her plate. The black-haired girl's name is Kanon, so she asks in return if it's like the camera before she introduces herself with a voice that could have been easily carried away by the summer wind. 

Three, or maybe five, green peas are thrown at her direction and Kanon refuses to call her by her name and instead calls her Lemon; their parents are apologizing through flying green peas, falling forks and chopsticks, panicking waitresses but that's all there to remember from that summer day. It isn't a surprise that it's hard to remember anything else when she had cried all the way back home, after all. "She called me a lemon! I'm—" She hiccups into her father's arms, "I'm not a lemon!" 

Her birthday party at the age of seven is small and quaint, and her mother asks her how old she is after blowing out the seven candles; it's on instinct that she starts with her name first. "I'm Fujita Mahiro, and I'm seven-years-old!" The name on her tongue is no longer a mash of syllables but a name that she has grown into. Her name is written in nearly all of her belongings from the square white towels to her swimming goggles. She can write her name in Katakana, Hiragana, and in Kanji with a soft circular flourish on her handwriting. 

She has embedded her existence into the world by counting up to 324 out loud, eating all her vegetables, drawing on the side of the refrigerator with crayons, and braiding her hair but never securely tying it. She's this and that, and everything more—lovingly introducing herself to the world, for what is the world without her? Simple, it is lesser. 

She's nine-years-old when a boy with hair like the color of mud and eyes the color of a 10¥ coin pulls on her hair and sticks his tongue out at her. Her name is on his lips but it sounds nothing like the way she says her own name, it's like a curse and a name of a sickness on his tongue and she hates it. His hands pull on her hair, his fingers pinch at her skin, and his mouth is nothing but a cursed thing. She starts putting her hair in a high ponytail but that doesn't stop the boy from wrapping his sticky digits around her blond hair. 

Mud boy thinks it's the same color as yesterday's bread, the color of rotten wheat, and the color of sand; she brushes her hair later on and thinks to herself how much she hates his mouth open. Her teacher says Mud boy is the way that he is because she's pretty while her father says it's because boys (in general) are buttfaces, but Kanon says she should just punch Mud boy. "Mama says boys are silly but that doesn't e-excuse them from doing stupid stuff," Kanon simply says, on her stomach as she finishes her arithmetic homework on the living room floor of the Fujita's home.

She squishes her face to a wince at the thought of punching a boy but on the eighth day, during Handicrafts and cutting paper into flowers with safety scissors, Mud boy pulls at her hair and shouts something so obnoxious that she can't help but tackle him to the ground. It's hard to remember what else happened when blonde locks are strewn across the floor along with her green scissors and Mud boy crying as he cradled his cheek. He had lost a baby tooth, but what did that compare to her blonde hair haphazardly cut by safety scissors? 

After school, several hours after crying in front of the counselor with her mother next to her, Kanon gives her a lemon-flavored gum. "You can braid my hair if you want, now that your hair is so cut close to your ears. Then we can come back to school tomorrow, and punch Mud boy together. And Mama says his teeth will grow back, so it's alright." The black-haired girl said, her voice so sweet and soft that it had nearly made the older girl forget the taste of tears and lemon on her lips.

It's her last year in elementary school, she's 12-years-old and entering the cusp of her teenage years. Much has changed since she had began her education in the ecru colored walls of her elementary school, she looks at her reflection in the window and she knows that she has grown out of the size of her red _ransel_ and the maroon colored hat she's worn since she was seven-years-old, she can count the shirts, skirts, and dresses that she had used to wear as a child but can no longer wear now and it feels so strange—as if she was in a standstill between childhood and... _not_ -childhood. Too young to amount to anything, but a little too old to be a child. Her mother is as delighted as her grandmother at her growth, calling her all sorts of flowery things that would make a wordsmith blush. 

She no longer introduces herself as much as she used to, having grown up with the same people in the same district but the changes in her life are like snowfall, like stars filling out the sky, like a new gum to chew after chewing one for too long. Something like that, or maybe not something like that at all but her graduation essay is an odyssey of unfeeling letters and words, and an uncertain ode to her future. Her dreams are a whirlwind of this, that, and so much more that she doesn't bother to write them down but instead, she just chooses to cordially thank her parents, her teachers, and friends for the six long years of elementary school. 

Not able to think of anything else besides wanting to continue swimming, to make friends in her new school, to hope that there are not many boys like Mud boy from third grade, and maybe more. She traces the penciled letters with a ballpoint, it takes her five lines to continue until her wrist starts to hurt; she looks around and sees her seatmate having fallen asleep on the _bōsai zukin_ with the essay unfinished underneath the student's weight, there's dust on the _bōsai zukin_ that she refuses to acknowledge as she stared down at her own table. _There are plenty of things to look forward_ , she thinks distractedly. 

Her name is written with four characters, but it still fails to fill the space of what the inevitable change had left her with. She graduates in a kimono with an armful of flowers and letters, none of her peers cry but are instead more than just overjoyed that the ceremony had come to an end. Hours of children yelling out their dreams and their aspirations to a crowd is as daunting as it was embarrassing despite the countless rehearsals they had beforehand. But, like always, there are more daunting things on this earth that not many elementary school graduates can comprehend. 

It was only her third month in Kitagawa Daiichi Junior High School when her world is set on fire by the evening news' headlines, bold letters in red and black. A company scandal— _A medical entrepreneur from the Miyagi prefecture is facing charges that he ran an elaborate scheme to defraud shareholders of ¥2.8 billion, by devising fake assets and overstating earnings_ —that fills every news outlet like a rampaging beast, devouring her family's reputation and throwing it out into the very depths of the abyss and insurmountable despair. It isn't a surprise that it's hard to remember anything else, not when there was barely anything to look forward to after that. 


	2. 存在価値を示すのよ

**[** ** show the value of your existence ** **]**

It was in Kasamatsu Kanon's belief that she would have protected Mahiro from the world if it were possible. And perhaps, in another plane of existence, where reputations do not precede character; with Kanon's small white knuckles, silver tongue, and relentless determination—whether she was flawed by history or not, if she had protected her, maybe Fujita Mahiro would have stayed in the small and quaint country of Japan. But this was the self-centered thinking of a child whose childhood friend had just been stripped out of her adolescent years, because the world is only what it is until you grow older. And so, eventually, the years consume itself until the seasons slowly melded into one another, a continuous reminder that a part of Kanon's world had been burned to the ground along with her childhood memories. The color of her eyes is still the color of amber and the color of her hair is still as dark as a stage deserted by its actors, and so, she is still inevitably and irrevocably herself.

Her hair was in a low ponytail, and her uniform was that of a boring, dark blue jump skirt topped with a heinous bolero in the same color. Her uniform was that of a nightmare, a common loathsome error that everyone agreed on while enviously thinking of sailor uniforms, plaid and pleated skirts, ribbons, and neckties. But much to her dismay, Ishinomaki Junior High School was specifically tailored to be depressing in all theoretical aspects, with teenagers vying for attention from their peers. Their words sharpened to cut, amassed to drown, and made vile to poison. Children she had known before were now desperate to thrive whether it was of fair merits or not; her mother had told her it was because of _'p-u-b-e-r-t-y'_. She had, later on, learned what it meant with absolute disdain.

Her years in Junior High School were tedious days of strained smiles, tense shoulders, and cold scoffs that started at the early hours of eight in the morning, an ungodly hour with adolescents just desperately hanging onto their last salvation: _lunch break._ Lunch was like a breath of relief that oftentimes smelled like miso soup, _mugi gohan_ , milk, and mixed vegetables—but it was the kind of relief that came with the price of having to partake in small talk. Despite being grudgingly pertinacious for the past three years of Junior High School, small talk had always been the uncontested bane of her reclusive existence. It felt like a conversation for NPCs, the kind of which you have no choice but to button-smash through.

She was deep in thought whether it was in her favor that she was graduating that year and moving 265.1 km away for the sake of her sanity, or if she was just moving away from societal cesspools of depravity only to move to _another_ cesspool, when a voice threw her out of her thoughts. "Kasamatsu, you're in the brass band, right?" Asami Kei, a 178cm baseball player who was a straight shoo-in for high school recommendations not only just for his athletic gifts but also for a report card of nothing but 4's and 5's, asked while prudently picking out the bones of the mackerel.

Looking up from her plate and quickly glancing to her milk carton— _Where's the straw?_ —she absently nodded, "Yeah, and you're in the baseball team, right?" Setting down her chopsticks while she reached out for the milk, still not entirely sure where the small talk would take her besides down the road of eminent awkwardness. She isn't keen on making sense of the conversation now that she can suddenly remember 28 instances where she had stunningly embarrassed herself, but she's sure that these 28 instances are just the tip of the iceberg.

Asami made a sound from the back of his throat that seemed to be an indication of confirmation, "The third year's final game is this Saturday, I was hoping—"

"You don't have to ask for the band to come, Tabata-sensei already said we're going to play at the game for _'moral support'._ " She said indifferently as her eyes darted elsewhere instead, anywhere but towards Asami's eyes. Her memory from fifth grade when Asami had ran dazzlingly through the race tracks during Sports day was suddenly at the forefront of her mind. A part of her tells her (reminds her)that his eyes are like coffee and a waning sunset until the sun hits his irises, the coffee is cold and the sun has disappeared behind the skyline of skyscrapers and electrical wires. All that's left when sunlight meets his eyes are the color of a vintage photograph, dusty and an unearthed memory from long ago.

"I wasn't...?" Asami confusedly replied, "And that wasn't what I—"

Her eyebrows arched in returned confusion, opening the corner of the milk carton with no hopes of finding a straw with an inattentive expression on her face, "Then, what?" She asked, the corner of her lips taut with incomprehension. But the chime rings, and so the words that were lodged on back of Asami Kei's throat dies before it even came alive.

It's Sunday and the sun was a glaring dot in the sky between the wisp of white clouds, but the scenery was still not much different from Ishinomaki despite it being a trip of nineteen train stations between her and her destination. Even in the comfort of the train, her skin was irritated with the blistering heat that filtered through the window. These are the moments where she is shoulders deep in her thoughts, a whirlwind of cynical nonsense. Summer had brought Kanon's childhood to life through the introduction of a girl who was named after space but had filled it with simply just her existence, but it had been Spring that took her away. It was just a four-year-old story of dead wonder and childhood sorrow, but Kanon had grown up linking her fingers with Mahiro. It's a feeling wrought deep with endless nostalgia and viperous hope, there are no similitudes to this feeling that has rusted her chest with cynism but her thoughts wander to a simpler world of an endless summertide.

Her phone vibrates relentlessly from the notifications, stirring her from her thoughts. Unlocking it only took a simple four-digit, her eyes glazed over the time at the top of her screen—12:19 PM. She doesn't blink at her default screensaver of Totoro and slides through the apps on her home screen, tapping her thumb softly at the LINE app as she lightly scratched the skin on her neck in a distracted manner.

> **ふれんちほるん** ✨💛 **(7)**  
>  **3-7 Kasumi:** this is the best day of my life ✨✨  
>  **3-7 Kasumi:** [Sent a picture]   
>  **3-7 Kasumi:** [Sent a picture]   
>  **2-1 Suzu:** [Sent a sticker]  
>  **3-7 Nanami:** should we report this for invasion of privacy???   
>  **3-7 Nanami:** at least take pictures discreetly?????????  
>  **3-2 Takashi:** He isn't even good looking.

She takes a closer look but doesn't care nor bother to zoom in any further, the filter made the boy's hair more pastel than it probably should have been. Kanon absently wondering how long it took to bleach his hair to achieve such a pastel salmon color, and once again unbelievably envious that the rest of the world was so much unlike Ishinomaki Junior High School—boring in all theoretical aspects and specifically tailored to diminish the light of individualism in its students. But she'd just be repeating herself.

> **2-4 Hiroki:** Takashi-senpai, please get a hold of yourself.  
>  **3-7 Kasumi:** stop looking at the mirror takashi 🤢  
>  **2-1 Suzu:** did u rlly have to diss him wwww  
>  **3-2 Takashi:** I thought you liked Kurosawa????  
>  **3-7 Kasumi:** yeah but look at this guy's ass???????  
>  **3-7 Nanami:** i pretend not to see 😌  
>  **2-4 Hiroki:** Kanon-senpai, please stop them.  
>  **2-1 Suzu:** you're asking the wrong person for help you fool  
>  **1-2 Himuro:** that's chidoriyama's catcher  
>  **1-2 Himuro:** i think???  
>  **1-2 Himuro:** i say him play against my brother's team last week.  
>  **3-7 Kasumi:** well, he can catch my heart (ง ื▿ ื)ว   
>  **3-7 Nanami:** i plead that you repent for your sins  
>  **(User) Konan:** is it starting????????

Looking outside for a quick instance, she nimbly got down the train at the realization that she was supposed to change trains from here. Kanon wipes the corner of her brow, a visible frown on her face as she squinted her eyes at the magnified brightness of the summer sun—12:24 PM. She climbs into the next train, not particularly thinking of anything else until she feels the ping from her smartphone.

> **3-2 Takashi:** It doesn't start for another hour, but come quick.  
>  **3-7 Nanami:** where r u??  
>  **(User) Konan:** roger   
>  **(User) Konan:** two more stations left (( _ _ ))..zzzZZ  
>  **(User) Konan:** also  
>  **(User) Konan:** his ass aint shit  
>  **3-2 Takashi:** 8888  
>  **3-7 Kasumi:** and yours is? (¬ ¬)  
>  **3-7 Kasumi:** maybe you arent zooming in enough?  
>  **(User) Konan:** wanna die? ^^  
>  **3-7 Kasumi:** im going to need an essay on that. kwsk  
>  **2-1 Suzu:** ε-('∀｀; )   
>  **3-7 Nanami:** mjk;;;,,  
>  **1-2 Himuro:** all of u are hopeless orz  
>  **1-2 Himuro:** pls graduate soon  
>  **(User) Konan:** my thoughts exactly  
>  **3-7 Nanami:** rude  
>  **3-2 Takashi:** rude  
>  **3-7 Kasumi:** rude  
>  **Read 5 - 12:2** **7**

This is how Kanon's summer ends. Like a humid heatwave with the echoing sound of a train on rails, with the feeling of dust on her skin that irritates her as she blows music into the wind from her instrument and into the battlefield of athletes. She sees the boy with salmon hair in the distance, the filter of sunlight kissed his skin and made the sweat on his temples glisten as he caught the 76 diameter baseball wrought of teenage hope and dreams. There's a billow of cheers from the opposing team's stands, and she witnesses Asami clench his jaw. Closing her eyes, she blinks away the saffron glow of the sun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [1] Mugi gohan: it's barley rice, and from my experience, it's supposed to taste different from normal white rice (i don't think it tastes different, though. and a couple of people i know hate barley rice because of the taste.)  
> [2] Academic grading: the grading system used in Japan until senior high school is a 5-scale system, 1 (being the lowest, usually equivalent to an F [or 0–59%]) to 5 (being the highest, usually equivalent to an A [or 80–100%]). an interesting phenomenon is that even if an individual student fails a course, they may pass with their class regardless of grades on tests. the grades on tests have no effect on schooling until taking entrance exams to get into high school.  
> [3] ふれんちほるん: French Horn, but written in Hiragana.  
> [4] -senpai: a term to use for someone who is "older, more experienced, in a higher social position, etc.," or, regardless of age, "have entered the same school or workplace earlier."  
> [5] 8888: streams of the number eight such as 8888 represent applause. read as パチパチ (pachi-pachi - the sound of hands clapping together one after another in applause).  
> [6] Ww: abbreviated from 笑い (warai - to laugh), it's the Japanese equivalent of 'Lol'. [other variations include: 笑笑・爆笑・草]  
> [7] kwsk: abbreviated from 詳しく (kuwashiku - in detail).  
> [8] mjk: abbreviated from マジか (majika - seriously?/really?).  
> [9] orz: the "o" is the head, the "r" is the hand on the ground, and the "z" is the bent legs. orz.


	3. 痛みと苦悩の蜜の隙間

**[** ** in the space in the nectar of pain and distress ** **]**

His fingers below the table move animatedly as he recites all the signals in his head. It's easy to remember, he realizes, once he goes over it again for the third time. It's a series of joints folding against one another, pointing at the sky or making a shape. He breathes in the words that float between him and his homeroom teacher, the phrases suspended from their speech bubbles as if it were necks on the gallows. He breathes in what is left of his logic, rationality, and patience— _whatever he is wholly made of_ —yet his lungs are crushed at the possibility of questions he has no answers to. He starts picking on the nonexistent dirt underneath his nails and absently focuses on the shoelaces of his shoes, he imagines the world crashing down around him as he sits still on the chair; he makes it a point to think of himself sitting at the edge of a cliff, instead.

"Any plans for high school?" Kimura Ayumu, the Japanese teacher and assistant coach of Chidoriyama's baseball team, asks as he thumbs through a thick, dark green folder that is ten pages thicker than the one beneath it— _Nakajima, Nakamura, Nishimura_ —as he leisurely looked for the athlete's file. Seven pamphlets secured by two paperclips stick out of his file and it's about as obvious as the young man's wince, his jaw growing weaker as the pamphlets are laid out in front of him like tarot cards.

"I dunno," He forces himself to speak, trying not to give away the impression that it was only a desperate façade. "I haven't given it any thought, actually," The athlete continues with a scoff, earning himself a disbelieving look from his teacher. "I was supposed to talk about it with my old man during Golden Week, but I was out for that training camp thing, so... Didn't really get to bring it up. And then there was that Sports Fest committee thing I had to do on top of cram school, and then baseball then... Yeah, I just don't really have much time to think about it, y'know?"

(An overdue reminder to this cautionary tale is that Hajime Shun, superstar- _slash_ -genius baseball athlete of Chidoriyama Junior High, is a liar.)

"You're in the baseball team, right? What about baseball then?" Kimura-sensei asked, listlessly looking at his student file that had been marked with otter sticky-notes. It was in Shun's favor that the man hadn't been looking when he was torn whether to roll his eyes, or both. _'I'm the captain of the baseball team, you're the assistant coach of the baseball_ _team. Just what kind of twisted tactic is this?!'_ He snarls in his head, gripping the edge of his heat in burning annoyance.

The question was akin to the gilded arrow of Paris that had pierced through Achilles in the Trojan War, the syllables fall onto his lap and it squirms like a grotesque beast, "I don't know." Hajime Shun nearly whispers, eyes barely making contact with his executor. He no longer hears the distant echo of the Brass Band from the fourth floor, nor the ragtag screams of athletes from the field. Nothing else matters in his head when the question is like a lethal plague in his head and a relentless drill to his psyche all at once.

"Have you considered Inarizaki's offer?" The man asks, drawing out a photocopied pamphlet of the school, black and white with bits of grainy indecipherable texts here and there. Shun stares at it for a moment, trying to remember the scholarship the scout offered him last summer during the semi-finals. (It wasn't a surprise that the athlete didn't remember _shit_.)

"That's in _Hyogo_ , that's like, 650 kilometers from here." He made a face, not exactly adamant with that sort of distance. He wasn't adamant for anything, in fact.

"Afraid you'll get homesick?" The dark-haired teacher patiently played along as he set the pamphlet aside only to bring out a new one. This time, it wasn't photocopied and had that just-got-printed sheen to it that it almost smelled a certain way. A handsome brunet was smiling at the very front of the minimalist typography, he wore an immaculate white blazer and a cream-colored vest in a way that it didn't look like a uniform but instead a god's holy garment.

 _Shit, he's pretty_ , he blinks to himself and at the student's charming exterior, the only thing that came to Shun's mind was the ( _probably_ ) terrifying amount of female students during their school orientations. "They're more renowned for their Volleyball team but Aobajohsai isn't far from here, and their baseball team is known for being able to produce professionals, too. In my opinion, I think it would be a great place to look into. It isn't too far from here either."

"Uhm, no thanks? Too preppy for me, I think," Shun spat, cringing at the prospect of getting homesick. _What's there to get homesick about_ , he thought to himself with his tongue sitting uncomfortably in his own mouth. "And Aobajohsai's a private school, it would cost way too _fu_... way too much."

"It's a sports scholarship, Shun, you won't have to worry about the tuition... Is there something you're not telling me?" Kimura-sensei asked, looking quite doubtful at his non-stop rejection. Smartly, Shun kept his mouth shut at the subtle accusation, looking at his sneakers once more with feigned indifference. "Do you have any plans for high school, Shun?"

"No, not really." Shun answered in a clipped tone, a false vengeance in his voice.

"What about your parents? Did they say anything about it?"

Gritting his teeth, he replied, "My dad swore up and down that it would be better for me to enter a school with a sports course. My mom isn't home often, so I don't know what she has to say about it." There's a half-hearted shrug halfway through his words, but he is only akin Icarus flying towards the saffron glow of freedom when he subtly speaks of his clear defiance.

"And what about you?"

"I don't... I don't think I want to continue baseball in high school," He vaguely whispered before tearing his eyes away from his false fascination on his shoes, meeting the perplexed expression on his teacher's face, "Just doesn't seem really fun anymore, y'know." The athlete dryly laughed, the mirth never reaching his eyes.

(The ending to this prologue is simple and clean, made of the caricature of hopeless and powerless youth—and so, the world continues to fall apart.)


End file.
